Within The Scales
by Queens of Hell
Summary: Sometimes a song makes Booth think of his partner {One-shots}
1. Chapter 1

_It was one of those songs. One where the music flowed and the lyrics resounded within his mind._

**I wanna be drunk when I wake up**

**On the right side of the wrong bed**

_The FBI agent kicked back another shot. The bartender, a man whom Booth was undoubtedly familiar with by now, simply sat across the slab of wood, refilling his glass. _

**And never an excuse I made up**

**Tell you the truth I hate**

**What didn't kill me**

**It never made me stronger at all.**

_Temperance Brennan. Bones. Doctor B. The woman who drove him nuts. He signaled for more alcohol, and the bartender finally got the message. Booth wanted to be drunk. The bartender, a young man barely legal himself, grabbed the strongest vodka the bar had to offer. Booth threw him a thumbs up, and the bartender shrugs, filling the constantly empty glass._

**Love will scar your make-up, lip sticks to me**

**So now I maybe lean back there**

**I'm sat here wishing I was sober**

**I know I'll never hold you like I used to.**

_He didn't know how to explain his feeling for that infernal woman. The way she knew exactly when something was bothering him, the way she let him protect her even when it was unnecessary. Camille would just smile, telling him he was a smart man. Hodgins would smile knowingly, and tell him to go talk to Angela. Who, in turn, would tell him, very plainly, that he was head-over-heels for his partner._

**But a house gets cold when you cut the heating**

**Without you to hold I'll be freezing**

**Can't rely on my heart to beat in**

**'Cause you take parts of it every evening**

**Take words out of my mouth just from breathing**

**Replace with phrases like when you're leaving me.**

_Maluku. The word still pained him some days. Seven months in the depth of Indonesia with only a chatter-mouth squintern. No Booth. And that, in his personal opinion, meant no protection._

**Should I, should I?**

**Maybe I'll get drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**To feel a little love**

_He wanted to feel Brennan's hand in his, wake up every morning to her face next to him. He wanted Bren to love him like he loved her. The shots kept coming. He wanted to feel the buzz, wanted to imagine that it was his partner next to him, curled around his arm, laughing. He wanted to hear her laugh, it was like music to his ears. He wanted her to smile at him, to be able to say that she's his wife._

**I wanna hold your heart in both hands**

**Not watch it fizzle at the bottom of a Coke can**

**And I got no plans for the weekend**

**So should we speak then**

**Keep it between friends**

**Though I know you'll never love me like you used to.**

_He loved her. It was as simple as that. And yet, it wasn't. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and he wanted family. He wanted to grow old with her, watch their children grow up, have children of their own._

**There may be other people like us**

**Who see the flicker of the clipper when they light up**

**Flames just create us but burns don't heal like before**

**And you don't hold me anymore.**

_'Dad.'_

_It was Parker. It was one of the seemingly rare nights that Rebecca let him see his son, and the two Booths were sitting in the young boy's favorite diner._

_'How come you aren't going to marry Doctor Bones?'_

_Booth stared open mouthed at his six year old son, a fry half-drowned in ketchup hanging from his fingers. He had never truly realized how perceptive children were until now. _

_'Dad?' _

_The man couldn't seem to form a coherent sentence. Finally, he swallowed the rather enormous lump that had formed in his throat, and answered._

_'She loves someone else, Parker.'_

_The lump landed in Booth's stomach._

_'But you love her more, right?'_

_Booth really should pay better attention to how he behaves around his son. He had no idea how to answer, how to reassure he boy that no one loved Bones more than he. But all he could manage was,_

_'It's not polite to ask things like that, Parker.'_

_The boy frowns. Booth would never come to understand how he knew that Parker saw straight through the evasion of a proper answer._

_'Sorry, dad.'_

_Parker new his dad loved Doctor Bones more than anything. And he was right. But Booth could never bring himself to admit it._

**On cold days cold plays out like the band's name**

**I know I can't heal things with a hand shake**

**You know I can't change as I began saying**

**You cut me wide open like landscape**

**Open bottles of beer but never champagne**

**To applaud you with the sound that my hands make.**

_It had been another hard case, and Brennan and Booth were relaxing at his apartment, a few empty beer bottles cluttered on the coffee table. Bones had her head on the armrest and her feet in his lap. _

_'__How come we always drink after some cases?' She asks, in that even, scientific tone she used so often._

_'__Tradition, I guess.' He responded simply, taking another swig of beer. 'Hard case, hard liquor.'_

_'__I guess so.' Bones says, reaching for the scotch._

_'__Stop thinking, keep drinking.' Was her partner's reply_

**Should I, should I?**

**Maybe I'll get drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**To feel a little love.**

_Somehow, they always ended up at the Royal Diner or the Founding Fathers bar. Today was no different, and it was lunchtime at the diner._

_Bones was rattling facts off about the case, and Booth had since learned when to nod and go 'uh huh.'_

_Mostly because he had to be able to convince her he wasn't staring._

_Which, of course, he was. He was always watching her. The pieces of hair that framed her face (they never seemed to stay in her ponytail), the huge pieces of jewelry she was fond of. Booth wanted to memorize every part of her, everything about Brennan that made him love her_

**All by myself**

**I'm here again**

**All by myself**

**You know I'll never change**

_She always spent Christmas at the lab. He never understood why until that one time with Careful Lionel and Hodgins love for spiked eggnog. She lost everything she knew around that time, turning the happy holiday into something a little bleak. Booth tried to always make up for it, bringing her cases, small gifts. Convincing her to join in the Secret Santa. Little things that Booth hoped made Brennan's Christmas just a little bit brighter._

**All by myself**

**All by myself**

**I'm just drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**I'll be drunk again**

**To feel a little love.**

_He didn't have to be drunk to love her. He did that enough when he was sober. No, Booth had to be drunk to, for even a second, forget about the little tugs in his heart, the little pangs telling him he was deeply, truly, madly in love with Temperance Brennan._


	2. Chapter 2

_They weren't streets, per say. Pathways, halls, catwalks. The small town the Jeffersonian had created within its walls, the halls that were home to many._

**These streets are yours, you can keep them**

**I don't want them**

**They pull me back, and I surrender**

**To the memories I run from**

_The faint death-y smell would hang in the air, the only drawback to a career with the dead. Booth had come to appreciate the smell, the lingering of the Grim Reaper and the anti-septic. He had learned to associate the Jeffersonian with the dead, and in turn the Bone Lady, the 5"8 woman who had managed to pluck out his heart and hold hit with her bare hands._

**Oh, we have paved these streets**

**With moments of defeat**

**But even if we won't admit it to ourselves**

**We'll walk upon these streets and think of little else**

**So I won't show my face here anymore**

**I won't show my face here anymore**

_He still couldn't really understand what made him love her, what made Booth give the introversive woman his heart and soul. Maybe it was her self-assurance in her abilities, her constant know-it-all personality spilling out._

**These streets are yours, you can keep them**

**In my mind it's like you haunt them**

**And passing through I think I see you**

**In the shapes of other women**

_Maybe it was her eyes, like looking into a clear ocean that first drew him in. The green mixing with the blue, the swirls of unearthly colors in her irises. Booth could see the hundred foot walls she had built, shielding herself from others, protecting the most vulnerable aspect of the brilliant woman. He knew now, that he had been the only one in a long time to break down the walls, to worm his way into her heart. To come back and tear down her barriers brick by brick if she started them up again._

**Oh, we have stained these walls**

**With our mistakes and flaws**

**_Flaws. Everyone had flaws. Hers were obvious, glaring. _**

_'Booth.'_

_It was another night after a case, the two partners curled on the couch, be it Brennan's or Booth's, surrounded by beer bottles and the occasional half-finished scotch or imported Russian vodka bottles nestled against the table legs. _

_'Yeah, Bones?' _

_He would look at her, drunken, curled against his side, eyelids fluttering in an effort to stay awake. _

_'Angela told me to find flaws.'_

_He furrows his brow. Find flaws?_

_'I tried to find yours, a-and I couldn't find one.' She admits, slurring a bit, the alcohol having long taken effect. _

_'Flaws? Oh Bones. I have tons.' He said, looking at her, so fragile, so worried._

_'No no no. You're strong, you're brave. You would give your life to save mine.' She presses farther into his side, trying to get closer. 'You are flawless.'_

_Booth could only shake his head in amusement. He was by all means drunk, but not so much as his partner. He would never tell her, but she was a bit of a lightweight. Two and a half bottles of beer added to one glass of strong scotch and she was a goner. _

_'Nah. I've hurt people. I've done bad things.' He says, wrapping his arm around her. _

_'That doesn't count. You have no flaws.'_

_"Everyone has flaws, Bones." He says softly. "You, me, Angela, Hodgins." He rattles off people._

_"You are flawless." She repeats drunkenly, and Booth can only shake his head softly, pure adoration in his gaze. _

**But even if we won't admit it to ourselves**

**We'll walk upon these streets and think of little else**

**So I won't show my face here anymore**

**I won't show my face here anymore**

_Booth never could quite pinpoint when he realized that he loved his partner. Maybe it was the day he realized that he would give his life for her without a second thought._

**All that's left behind**

**Is a shadow on my mind**

**(Oh, a shadow comes upon a wall is silhouette and nothing more but it's all that's left behind)**

**Is a shadow on my mind**

**All that's left behind**

_Some cases are harder than others. Not because of the killers themselves, but the people Brennan speaks of. Her friends-with-benefits people. Those days, he'll go home, pop open a bottle of hard cider, and go through all the silly drunk selfies they've taken, memorizing every inch of her face, remembering every second of the picture when he made her smile so brightly._

**But even if we won't admit it to ourselves**

**We'll walk upon these streets and think of little else**

**So I won't show my face here anymore**

**I won't show my face here anymore**

**I won't show my face here anymore**

**I won't show my face here anymore**

_Everyone could see it. See the way he looked at her, see the way he fought to protect her. He knew the squints (well, those with normal social abilities) could see it._

_So why couldn't she?_

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><p><em><span><strong>Author's Note<strong>:_

_This is a rather important message. I recently severely injured my knee, and 2.5 hours in the ER and an X-Ray couldn't tell me what was wrong. I am unable to get an MRI until late next week. Worst case scenario, I will be stuck on bed rest for a week or so. Depending on how bad the injury is and whether or not I need surgery will impact how much I write, so there is a chance that will not be many more updates for a while._

_Answers to Reviews:_

_J - Thanks so much! I will definitely go listen to the song and see if it strikes me as a good song to work with._


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